Movie review - "Candy" (1968) **

 Cripes. The novel was popular, apparently. I don't think anyone reads it anymore. I haven't heard anything good about this movie so I was surprised to find myself enjoying it so much at first. It got off to a flying start with its groovy visuals and music and all star cast. Ewa Aulin isn't much of an actress but she's gorgeous - apparently Terry Southern wanted an All American type like Hayle Mills which would've been interesting but maybe too confronting.

Candy has a series of encounters with men who all manhandle her. This isn't a film that's strong on consent. What it does have is a series of encounters with stars, and you find yourself marking the vignettes. Richard Burton is hilarious as a Dylan Thomas type poet - he really commits and goes all out. Ringo Starr is less fun as a lechy Mexican. John Astin (in probably the second biggest role) is Candy's dad. Walter Matthau is a funny as a general but as Pauline Kael pointed out this sort of character was old hat by then. James Coburn is very funny as a doctor, he plays it in the right spirit as does Anita Pallenberg (sexy nurse) and John Huston.

There's an unfunny sequence with some Italian actors playing gangsters and an even less funnier one with Charles Aznavour as a hunchback and I wasn't wild with Marlon Brando in brownface as a guru or the cimax where she has sex with her dad Astin.

Look, the film exists and it's got stars in it and is weird. Everyone disowned it but it did business.

Book review - " The Day the World Ended: The Mount Pelée Disaster: May 7, 1902" by Gordon Thomas, Max Morgan-Witts (1969)

 I wasn't that familiar with the disaster - it happened in a French colony in the Caribbean - but it was remarkable with around 30,000 people wiped out in a few minutes due to an exploision, ash cloud and fire. The thing is the situation got bad for weeks and weeks earlier, mudslides and fires and mini exploisions and the town wasn't evacuated. This is an examination of inertia and denial, rulers swept up in petty politics (there was a local election at the time), the Church being useless, stiff upper lips, a weak press. All too many resonances today with climate change.

Film rights were purchased but it wasn't filmed, at least I don't think so. I can see why. The actions are so frustrating from humans. However tremendous action set pieces - mud, ash, snakes going mad and attacking humans, cats taking on the snakes, voodoo sparking up, gore of people being killed, lots of dead kids and babies. It's a harrowing read.

Movie review - "Megalopolis" (2024) **

 Too many thoughts to put down in a coherent form so I'll do dot points:

- this didn't have to cost $120 million, at heart it's people in rooms talking

- props to a boomer blowing his fortune on an indulgent movie

- it feels like a third year drama school play - a verse drama, cobbled off Roman history, lots of "wisdom" and pretension, lousy female roles

- occasionally some genuine emotion comes through like Talia Shire giving son Adam Driver a serve

- the cast all commit - Nathalie Emmanuel does as well as she can, Driver goes for it, Aubrey Plaza really goes for it, Jon Voight excellent and Shia LeBouf absolutely nails it - whatever the film is, Shia is it

- the adaptation of Rome doesn't work - there's lots of newspapers, and people smoking - also rich families tend not to run for elected office these days it's easier to buy politicians - so there was a level of non reality about it (I know it was expressionistic but things clunked - it was set in our world but also had a 1980s vibe) - I wish he'd just set this in Ancient Rome or gone fully sci fi and set it in the future

- I couldn't follow what was happening (Driver builds things I think and there's elections and... something) and at two horus 15 minutes it was hard

- Coppola can still do violence well as shown with the assassination attempt on Driver

- DB Sweeney and James Remar have small roles! Bless

- obviously very personal about Coppola with his love for a princess daughter and Driver thanking Emmanuel "for making him work" (gotta love those behind the scenes women), and blonde female sex objects

- why was Dustin Hoffman in this film?

Look, he had a go. He really did.

Movie review - "Our Man Flint" (1966) ***

 Sometimes you have to be there. This was one of the many, many, many Bond spoofs but it was one of the first out of the gate - I think it just beat The Silencers to the punch though that was a big hit too. The casting of James Coburn was, in hindsight, a masterstroke - he had a laconic, suave, rugged look, not too imidiatingly pretty, a nice sense of humour. I mean, maybe it would've worked with someone else but who? Think about it - Paul Newman too earnest, Jack Lemmon too goofy. James Garner could've made it work.

Anyhow. It's very 60s. Lee J Cobb got on the nerves as did the gag about the phone. There's some funny bits and pretty girls. Edward Mulhare is suave but doesn't have much of a character to play apart from suave - why not someone more colourful.

I really liked the second half when Coburn went on the mission. That's when Flint worked for his money and girls and was more likable. The island is fun, Jerry Goldsmith's music is terrific, the whole wish fulfilment is hilarious.

Movie review - "Major Dundee" (1965) ***

 A famous they-took-my-film-away-and-butchered-it movie, with Sam Peckinpah bleating loudly about the suits and critics dutifully taking his side. I think there's a lot of great things about this movie but it has an essential flaw. Oddly, fixing that flaw I think would've been easy and saved money but the studio wanted a Roadshow, and Peckinpah prepped for one, then the studio cut budget, and filming went haywire. I get why the studio wanted to cut the budget but if they did they should have junked the Roadshow idea and gotten Peckinpah to properly refigure it. It would've saved money.

The basic idea is very strong - North and South troops team up to chase Apaches into Mexico and clash with the French. There's a knock out cast. You could tell that story with ten people. It's a prison. There only needs to be a few guards.

But there's too many characters. Charlton Heston (very good) leads a a big band and there's all these people whose stories need to be serviced. Richard Harris is the Southern officer, an Irishman (which makes historical sense), James Coburn is a scout, Warren Oates is a Confederate, Brock Peters is a black soldier, Michael Anderson is a bugler seeking revenge against the Apache, Santa Berger is an Austrian doctor's widow, Ben Johnson is a sergeant, there's a sort of peaceful reverend guy RG Armstrong, and there's a Mexican Mario Adorf, Jim Hutton is an officer (I think he's meant to be a scrounger character), there's also some other women, oh and there's Slim Pickens too. And LQ Jones as some Southern soldier who gets these close ups. Like Heston hooks up with Berger, and then has a relationship with another woman. Who cares?

It's impossible to feed all these characters especially when time is devoted to Heston's character having a mid life crsis - which is fine actually. He should be the focal point. And you need Harris' character. Peters' character had great potential and is junked. Oates has a terrific subplot being killed. They should've cut Anderson and Hutton entirely, merged Coburn's characer with Johnson and Adrof... made it  about a small bunch. Trim it right down to, let's say, Heston, Harris, Peters, that merged Coburn character and a few others. 

There's so much terrific stuff. I loved the novelty of them fighting the French at the end. Harris and Heston duking it out is fun. Heston gives one of his best performances and Harris has flair. The Peckinpah regulars are spot on. Actually all the acting is good and the Mexican locations are splendid as is the photography.

What a missed opportunity.

Book review - "Larry McMutry: A Life" by by Tracy Daugherty

 I was always going to find this interesting. Daugherty can write and has done research. The book isn't as good as McMurtry's own autobiographical writing which is so extensive. I was hoping for a little more numbers and date behind the books and movies (sales, etc) - Daugherty draws from letters and writings which have to be taken with a grain of salt. Some of the movie stuff, which I know a bit about, was a little wrong which made me wary of the rest of the book.

Ah, look, this is fine. It's better than fine it's very good. I guess I was hopeing for less quotations from people and letters and writing and more hard facts, like more specificity of who he was sleeping with and how much the different books sold and the money he made. And it'k okay on the novels, not amazing (I acknowledge this is due to the fact I have different opinions from Daughterty as to a few of them).

Movie review - "What Did You Do in the War Daddy?" (1966) ***

 A box office flop despite the fact it was from Blake Edwards and had James Coburn coming off Our Man Flint and a concept that would've seemed idea for the cynical sixties I'd have thought - a US unit in Italy comes across a town that wants to surrender after their wine festival, so the Yanks pretend to meet resistance, which brings in the Germans and US superiors. That's funny.

But maybe when you pick at it, it's not - World War Two was a Good War, so they are ducking out of important service. Also why can't they surrender and then do the wine festival? It doesn't make sense. It maybe would've worked if it was near the end of the war and they'd been sent to fight silly battles and there was a better reason to stop - like give the Americans a really villainous gneneral.

The movie falters in terms of characterisation. The leads are Dick Shawn and James Coburn but Coburn's role is sidelined. I think Shawn is meant to be uptight and Coburn laid back but Shawn gets un-uptight pretty quickly and Edwards can't seem to think of things for Coburn to do, or Aldo Ray who's also in there. Operation Petticoat had very defined characters - Cary Grant was uptight and by the book, the nurses called havoc, Tony Curtis was on the make... The characters here aren't as fixed. You could cut Coburn and Ray out of the film and made it about Shaw and Sergio Fantoni - actually that's what it should've been.

It looks gorgous, there's some funny bits, it was good to see Shawn in a lead role. I did sense Edwards would've been happier with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. But also Edwards liked Coburn - he used him on Waterhole 3 and The Carey Treatment - why not give him more to do. The Italian female doesn't have much of a character, or does Sergio Fantoni (friendly Italian).

Movie review - "Harry in Your Pocket" (1973) **

 James Coburn stars in another film from a first time director, Bruce Geller - who worked on Mission Impossible and I think the writers worked on that show. It has a TV movie feel, lots of brown, Lalo Schifrin music. Coburn is a pickpocket working with veteran Walter Pigeon, they hook up with two newbies Michael Sarrazin and Trish Van Dere.

Sarrazin should have been Coburn's brother or son - would've given it more emotional kick. The slang about pick pocketing is interesting but not that interesting.

It's nice that Pigeon had a juicy role - old thief who snorts coke - but watching it I couldn't help think "a lot of other old stars would've been better in this like Bette Davis or someone".

The film doesn't work. It doesn't lean into its love triangle until too late. There's no enough history between Coburn and Sarrazin. More needed to be made of their rivalry.

Or else the film could've been a three girls movie.

Pickpockets arent that interesting. A lot of bumping into people.

Movie review - "Dead Heat on a Merry Go Round" (1966) **

 One of those films inspired by Charade - all groovy, with twists. It's a bit annoying. A lot rests on the shoulders of James Coburn, who gets out of prison and plans a heist. Thing is it takes half the film for him to raise money for the heist, which involves him romancing people - the shrink to get him out of prison, a maid (Nina Grey who is terrible), a socialite (Rose Marie) another cleaner (Camilla Sparv). Most of these actresses are gorgeous and dressed gorgeously but they're swept off their feet by Coburn - who is attractive but not that hot. Even Cary Grant would struggle to have sold it. But it's all so patchy and stop start.

Coburn also imitates various people including an Australian cop! (He was an Aussie in The Great Escape.)

The film gets much better once the heist kicks in and there's some pace.

It looks terrific in that late 60s way. Harrison Ford pops up to deliver a telegram. I struggled to tell the male support cast apart.

Movie review - "Duffy" (1968) ** (warning: spoilers)

 This movie has a good central idea-  some spoilt kids (James Fox, John Alderton) of a rich man (James Mason) decide to rob dad, and hire a tough American (James Coburn), who winds up sleeping with the girl (Susannah York) of one of them.

It has gorgeous photography, neat  location work, fab costumes, and is very groovy. It's all played for comedy though. -I think that was a mistake. It needed to have real stakes - Mason should've been really dangerous, ditto Fox. People should've died.

Also I think there needed to be more difference between Coburn and the Brits. Fox is such a great decadent aristocrat, York an ideal smashing bird and Alderton a good idiot - Coburn should be this gruff, tough Yank but he's a hippy (looking handsome it has to be said).

There's a final twist where York is in cahoots with Mason but it's not much of a twist. Everyone needed a twist.

Movie review - "The Wild Robot" (2024) ***

 Very sweet animated movie, a little reminiscent of Wall E, about a robot on a planet who winds up raising an orphaned geese. Pulls at heart strings very effectively and some gorgeous animation. I got confused about where the humans were - it's on the same planet yes? Also the film seemed to end a few times - really it could have ended with the geese flying away the first time.

Movie review - "The Fog" (1980) *** (re-watching)

 Just put it on for mood and atmosphere and location - it looks so splendid, with that great score, likeable cast. Runs smoothly. Fun to try and spot the reshoots which are quite well integrated. Ending is a little damp squip with randoms in a church and Adrienne Barbeau on top of light house but still worth watching.

Watched a doco on the making of it after - Janet Leigh seems to have cancer, and sad to see Debra Hill looking so smart and healthy knowing she wouldn't live very long.

Movie review - "The Honkers" (1972) ** (warning: spoilers)

 James Coburn backed new talent - this was the first studio film from character actor Steve Ihnat - who died of a heart attack aged 37 at Cannes as this film was being released. It's an actor-y piece with Coburn as a rodeo rider - he's good at his job but is irresonsible, has an ex (Lois Nettleton) he still sleeps with because he's a stud, has a hot young hippy (Anne Archer) who wants him because he's a stud, clashes with locals, has an old mate (Slim Pickens), walks aound a town.

I'm surprised this got greenlit - Coburn wasn't that a big star by 1971 or whenever it was made... but I gues The Last Picture Show made studios go "quick we need our own modern day Western about lost people having sex.

The one outstanding bit is the end sequence when Slim Pickens dies in an accident. Everything else feels too light too dissolute, like minor Larry McMurtry. Coburn is fine but the piece would have been stronger had he been given stronger actors to play off against.

Movie review - "Waterhole #3" (1967) **

 Blake Edwards produced this but did not direct - that job went to William Graham who had a solid TV career. It's a lighthearted Western about the search for gold. There's a balladeer Cat Ballou style and a plot where James Coburn comically rapes Margaret Blye.

I was in the mood of a comic Western and Coburn is really well cast and it's gorgeously shot. But the film started slowly, grew more annoying and I ended up hating it.

Three main issues with this film. First the comic depiction of rape - the film really commits to this plot, Blye complains and keeps complaining and everyone laughs and dismisses it and then she falls for Coburn with no motivating scene. Why not just make her horny and try to seduce him? Was rape really funny in 1967? Was it hilariously trangressive or something? They don't even establish Cobun's a good lover.

Second the storyline is unconvincing. It's about the search for gold but there's no really memorable scenes.

Third Carol O'Connor is undercast. This part needed to have more star charisma to match Coburn - like a genuine star, someone old enough to have a daughter, such as, I don't know, Edward G Robinson or someone.

Movie review - "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976) ***

 Okay, so... am still processing... it's long, felt long, has a story but you have to pay attention, which is fine, kind of ends, Nic Roeg is a bit of a dirty perv with that useless subplot of Rip Torn having sex with nubile 18 year old students who are naked and one of them talks to Torn's unerect penis (we get a bit of Bowie's too), and then Claudie Jennings turns up in it as Bernie Casey's wife and she'd nude too. 

David Bowie is perfect, so entertaining and compelling, Candy Clark is lovely (Roeg shoots her body from all angles of course but it's an excellent performance), Torn is good, Buck Henry effective. The most positive depiction of a gay relationship in movies til that time? (Henry and his partner - supportive, loving, long term).

I'm not sure how Bowie got a hold of a British passport but most of it is believable enough though in today's world big business would surely trump the CIA. Very moving with the family back home and the experiments. Anti climactic ending. Varying make up - superb to dodgy.

Movie review - "Hard Contract" (1969) **

 Hitman who has lost zest for life and only sleeps with hookers is given a job which he hopes will fun his retirement but he falls in love... that feels like a very familiar plot and I was expecting a familar film.

But this is a very arty, sixties effort - close in tone to the George Lazenby Bond follow up Universal Soldier in a way. There's a little bit of assassinating but not a lot. Mostly it's chat in European locations.

James Coburn is more effective when chatty but here plays a stoic Alain Delon type - the film feels very influenced by the French. He hooks up with Lee Remick thinking she's a hooker but actually she's a bored housewife. He won't kiss but the film makes sure we know he's great in bed. (Karen Black pops up as another hooker). Lili Palmer is Remick's friend.

The film was written and directed by S Pogostian who was a TV writer and this has the soul of a television play. Lots of chat, mostly dialogues. It would work fine on the small screen. It's directed that way too. Jazzy angles - the John Boorman Point Blank treatment - would have worked. Less bad back projection.

To be fair I think there's also miscasting. Coburn isn't the same as Lee Marvin - far more effusive. He doesn't have chemistry with Lee Remick who is beautiful but aloof, not in a good way. The film is slightly off. The sex isn't that sexy. Imagine, I don't know, Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson in this. More interesting, yes? Actually Sterling Hayden, who plays an ageing hit man, would've been better in Coburn's part.

No real action. I feel sorry for Fox they would've expected some bang bang as well as philosophy but they just got philosophy.

But look film gets points for trying to be different. Coburn spent his stardom on interesting projects - this, Presidents Analyst, Last of the Mobile Hot Shots, etc.

Movie review - "Ride Lonesome" (1959) ***1/2

 James Coburn's film debut and Randolph Scott's third last. Scott plays a bounty hunter tracking James Best. They come across a duo - enigmatic Pernell Roberts and gangly grinning James Coburn, both of whom are superb. Lee Van Cleef adds tang as Best's dodgy brother. Best is great fun.

The dialogue is tangy, the photography beautiful, the plot full of twists. It's low budget but that doesn't matter. Karen Steele is a little silly with her peroxide blonde hair but her performance isn't bad. She's outshone by the men but they do have better roles.

Movie review - "The Desert Rose" by Larry McMurtry (1983)

 Warm, fun, affectionate tale of an aging Vegas showgirl (ie late 30s) and her sixteen year old daughter. So The Gilmore Girls before then. McMurtry loves warm hearted hapless women and this book is full of them. He's maybe a little too warm hearted towards the creepy millionaire who marries the teenage girl. The Vegas milieu is well evoked. It's a warm book but the seediness of the world is still there.

Movie review - "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" (2024) *** (warning: spoilers)

 It's not terrible! Sorry to be cynical. Burton's record hasn't been great. And it's not as though he's got new ideas (I don't think there's a song older than the 1990s). But the old film had plenty of ideas and it benefits from the long gap because it's about Winona Ryder's daughter. 

Catherine O'Hara smashes it as always and Michae Keaton is fun and Jenna Ortega does her thing (there's a few throwbacks to Wednesday eg a dance and a cute boy who's a killer). The film kicks into gear when Ortega starts romancing a ghost. It's sweet to see Ryder in the lead of a big studio feature again.

Lots of fun. Some genuine cleverness. I had a good time.

Movie review - "Hotel de Love" (1997) ** (re-watching)

 Gosh this is a period piece now. The talk of the differences between men and women, the self conscious literary quality, all the quirkiness. There's mugging and over playing. Saffron Burrows is beautiful but can't really act (she got better). Aden Young can act, and isn't bad, just feels a little wrong. Simon Bossell is allowed to over act as is Peter O'Brien. Everyone is fine when they tone down and emote, I've got to say. Oh, and Pippa Grandison, Ray Barrett and Juliet Blake have no trouble shifting gears.

The silly hotel has its own charm with its bright colours. It doesn't have lot of logic (would a hotel with such rooms ever appeal).  

The marriage between Julia Blake and Ray Barrett is so inherently toxic that their reunion is hopeplessly unconvicing. Likewise Simon Bossell's character is basically unhinged - at the end he goes to the airport every Friday to waiy for Grandison, is that right? Like we see them at the end, a very sweet scene... but he's been going for weeks and weeks unsuccessfully?

Movie review - "Is This is the Real World" (2015) ***

 Decent Aussie film which captures the violence and tension of high school. The direction has some flair -tracking shots, music. Sean Keenan has probably played the moody young man role too many times but there's a reason he keeps getting cast in those parts.

More could have been done with Susie Porter's character I feel and the brother but everyone acts well and the handling is sure.

Book review - "Dervish Dust: The Life and Words of James Coburn" by Robyn Coburn (2022)

 Robyn Coburn is an Aussie, married to James Coburn, son of the actor, so this book has an excellent inside track - close to its source but not too close. Certain it''s open about Coburn (I'll use the star's surname more) being a crap father, absent and not interested, and a grumpy old opinionated man. But a fine actor, superb speaking voice, some excellent performances. The book benefits from his letters, thoughts and interviews - as a member of the family the writer has superb access.

Coburn had a fascinating life and career. Tall, deep voiced, silver haired. He got professional work quite quickly. Benefited from being able to study under the GI Bill (he was drafted in the early 1950s but was in Europe not the Korean War). He always seemed to be able to support himself via advertisements - when starting out and later on. When he began getting TV work the jobs came thick and fast - he was ideal as villains in Westerns and played a lot of them. His film career was respectable quickly too - Ride Lonesome then The Magnificent Seven. He had a great run as a second lead. The Flint films turned him into a star but his actual period as a top level name above the star wasn't long. But 1980 there were no more film leading roles, and TV didn't give him that much longer either. But he always had his voice and cameos.

A genuine hippy. Managed to link to popular culture in odd ways - a mate of Bruce Lee's, in the Band on the Run photo, a rejected Cosmo nude centerfold (the one before Burt Reynolds), a big car importer, in some films edited badly by Jim Aubrey. 

He had a great 60s and pretty good 70s. Things went south in late 70s and took a while to bounce back. Won an Oscar with Affliction but that didn't so much for his career. Managed to appear in some iconic films though. Made a LOT of flops.

James Coburn top ten

 1) The Magnificent Seven (1960) - a guide for actors how to do a lot with very little screen time, big impact
2) The Americanisation of Emily (1964) - terrific movie, Coburn excellent as James Garner's sidekick
3) The Presidents Analyst (1967) - when Coburn became a star with In Like Flint he tried to make some "commercial" films that no one remembered and floped (Waterhole 3, Duffy, Hard Contact) but also a chance on this, which flopped but has a deserved cult
4) The Great Escape (1963) - yes it would've been better had an Aussie played this role but Coburn gets the spirit of playing an Aussie and he's great fun (and he's one of the few to escape!)
5) Pat Garrett and Billy the Kit (1973) - way out, flawed, consistently interesting Western which Coburn always adored perhaps influenced by that scene where he gets to be in bed with three hookers
6) The Last of Sheila (1973) - his part isn't that big but this is peak 70s Coburn
7) Our Man Flint (1966) - oh, look, I know, but the film defies criticism in a way...
8) Major Dundee (1965) - another memorable Coburn sidekick (I'd group it with High Wind in Jamaica)
9) Charade (1964) - from Coburn's hot streak of early 60s support parts
10) Fistful of Dynamite (1971) - look, Coburn's not Clint Eastwood but I really like the movie

Book review - "Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine " by Andrew Roberts and David Petraeus

 A look at various Western conflicts after WW2 - Vietnam, Oman, Korea, Malaya. Amazing how much failure. The bits on Iraq and Aghanistan are especially upsetting because they were so pointless, and expensive. Smart book. All the conficts needed political solutions. Just depressing.

Book review - " Face to Face: The Art of Human Connection Book" by Brian Grazer

 Interesting to read, passionately conveyed, very Hollywood and touchy feely, but that's fine. I had the sense he would tell a story about saving someone's life and he did - Harrison Ford's daughter. You can see why Grazer's done so well, all that sincerity and conviction. Not a dig.

Book review - "In a Narrow Grave Essays on Texas" by Larry McMurtry (1968)

 Excellent collection of essays - McMurtry on sure ground, he dives deep on some Texan writers I'd never heard of, takes pot shots at LBJ which are of their time, talks of driving an Texan citites. A joy to read.

Movie review - "Reflections in a Golden Eye" (1967) ***1/2

 When I grew up Ray Stark was this figure of terror, especially in accounts of the David Begelman case and David Puttnam at Columbia, but he had classy taste. This was not obviously commercial material - although I guess it had sexy Southerners and included Elizabeth Taylor stripping off. Maybe that and horny Marlon Brando would've meant more a decade earlier.

Anyway the story - Brando is married to Elizabeth Taylor who is sleeping with Brian Keith who is married to Julie Harris, and Brando is hot for nude horse riding Robert Forster who is obsessed with Taylor. Zorro David is one of cinema's first gay besties - Harris' camp Filipino houseboy.

Brando's performance is interesting - he has a weird Southern accent and does a lot of emoting. I didn't buy it. 

The ending is directed in a slightly silly way IMHO but it seems to have influenced American Beauty - closeted military man kills object of desire.

Book review - "Charlie Chaplin vs. America" by Scott Eyman

 Eyman's done a few books about famous right wingers so here's one about a left winger. It doesn't take on all of Chaplin's life, it focuses bascially on the hatred America had for him - elements of it. It stars at Chaplin's peak in the 1930s then goes into his battles for The Great Dictator, World War Two and the way the USA turned on him - or at least his critics grew in power. It was vicious and ferocious, the big fat slab of facism within American politics (we have it too) going berserk. It wasn't a tragedy as Chaplin held on to his money and had a happy last marriage but it was pretty brutal. A moving book.

Movie review - "Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) *****

 Over seventy years on few cinema entrances beat Marlon Brando walking into the apartment here with his insolence and confidence. Vivien Leigh matches him of course with her brilliance - she has the added advantage of having gone mad. Kim Hunter and Karl Malden are very solid support - the less flashy roles, but so crucial.

It's so much better plotted than most Williams works - the arrival, the mystery of Blanche's past, the concern over money, the use of Mitch, the build to climax.

The domestic violence is startling as is the depiction of sexual longing and satisfaction. The censor imposed final scene is fine because we all know Stella will go back to Stanley within a week.

A masterpiece.

James Darren Top Ten

 

1) The Brothers Rico (1957) - good Phil Karlson drama

2) Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) - lots of fun (compared to Gidget Goes to Rome which is just depressing)

3) Gidget (1959) - the film is ostensibly about Gidget surfing but in reality about the gentrification of Moondoggie

4) Guns of Navarone (1961) - he's effective in this and should've done more action films

5) The Time Traveller (1966) - no one forgot the skivvies

6) Venus in Furs (1967) - Jess Franco film - gets points for sheer weirdness

7) Diamond Head (1962) - Hawaiian melodrama with Darren as a "local" - quite fun if in right mood

8 ) Gunman's Walk (1957) - decent Phil Karlson Western with Tab Hunter given a decent role

9) All the Young Men (1960) - Korean War movie famous for trying to include someone in the cast for everone: Sidney Poitier for black audiences, Alan Ladd (looking dreadful) for older white audiences, Darren (singing a song) for teens, some Swedish boxer for sports fans, Mort Sahl for comedy fans

10) The Tijuana Story (1957) - Sam Katzman melodrama gives Darren an absurd death sequence running in to the ocean and drowning while being chased by the police but is actually quite compelling in its own way and has a rare Mexican hero in a Hollywood film.

Movie review - "The Silence of Dean Maitland" (1934) **

 At one stage you couldn't go wrong with a horny man of God hooking up with a woman and this was a big hit for Ken G. Hall at Cinesound. At this stage Hall was still very much in learner director mode but he was fortunate to be protected by some solid IP - the story, though hoary, is very solid. John Longden is ideal in the title role as the tormented reverend. Charlotte Francis is ideally sexy as the woman who tempts him. I liked Jocelyn Howarth too as her daughter - she is relaxed and natural although her role is small.

Location filming helps a lot - the seaside town - and it's fun to see little Bill Kerr as a blind kid. There's some wacky comedy from a George Wallace type. The romantic male lead (not Longden, the guy after Howarth) is wet, as so many 30s Australian film leading men were.

The pacing is a little off - gaps between people talking, uncertain sound. It's not as confident as later Cinesound movies. Also I saw an hour long version so character development was cut right down.

Movie review - "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958) ***1/2

 MGM's luck wasn't great in the late 50s but it held for this Tennessee Williams adaptation - Dore Schary bought it as a vehicle for Grace Kelly who then retired but Elizabeth Taylor stepped in and for all her vocal limitations was a perfect horny housewife. Paul Newman wasn't a big star at the time - rising but not big - but he was offered the male lead (I think Ben Gazzara may have turned it down) and it worked like gangbusters.

Newman doesn't sleep with Taylor because of guilt over his friend more than being gay for his dead friend but that works on its own terms. There's still Burl Ives' bombastic Big Daddy, and Jack Carson and Madeleine Sherwood as Taylor's dreadful in laws (because it's Williams she's more of a shrew he's amiable but waeak).

It's a solid movie. Richard Brooks suits it, at that stage. Taylor, Newman and Ives all get a chance to monologue.

Films MGM could’ve remade in the early 60s instead of the ones they did

 After Ben Hur MGM went on a remake kick. Not surprising considering the success of Ben Hur.

Their choices sunk the studio
- Cimarron
- Mutiny on the Bounty
- Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Also throw in Jumbo.
 

Okay trying not to be too wise in hindsight but... all the remakes made sense. Big screen and colour worked on all.

Mutiny on the Bounty especially. Shot in Tahiti. Gorgeous.

Where the studio really stuffed up with that one? They went into production without a fixed script and a star who overpowered the director. They really just needed to shoot the 1935 script. Update it a little. But it was involving water and going to Tahiti. They needed calm heads. People good on location. Not to make a masterpiece. Just to get spectacle. They should’ve cast Charlton Heston or Burt Lancaster or Kirk Douglas. A little bit of a diva but basically pros.

Cimarron had the right male star and director. But problem - it’s a woman’s story. They gave the female lead to Maria Schell - but then geared the film to Glenn Ford. They needed to have a matching female star, Elizabeth Taylor would’ve been ideal but if not her then I don’t know Debbie Reynolds. Make it more about her. Tell the story of her falling for Ford and so on.

Four Horsemen was the most obvious misfire. Update to WW2 - why? That not fatal but... Glenn Ford killed it. And female stars. Needed to be sexy. Sexless director. Incidentally, this didn’t need to be a big spectacle.

Other flops.
- Wonderful World of Brothers Grimm. Charming film. But dull, dull brothers. Just needed to tell fairytales. Not the dull brothers. Just too much money spent. Blown up too much.
- Billy Rose’s Jumbo. Great star and ideal director. Lost heaps. Musical possibly too old.
 

What else could they have remade from the MGM library? As in, a big budget spectacle
- Tale of Two Cities? Yes but the Brits did it in 1958.
- Marie Antoinette? Yes, but only if right star... Elizabeth Taylor or nothing.
- Gone with the Wind? No point. Same with Wizard of Oz.
- San Francisco? Yes!! Colour, better effects. No Gable but... you could do Glenn Ford.
- The Good Earth? No. Too problematic. Needed genuine Chinese actors by the 960s.
- The Big Parade? Interesting. A big hit. But public more war weary in 1925 than 1960?
- The Birth of a Nation? No!
- The Thief of Badgad? Yes. If they’d gotten the rights. They could’ve done big Robin Hood too.
- The Scarlet Letter? Too depressing.

Movie review - "Sweet Bird of Youth" (1962) **1/2

 Tennessee Williams play had plenty of familiar characters - the male drifter failed actor (a type that was in Picnic), the ageing film star - but was very well done with solid drama, such as the drifter Chance giving his ex the clap, and her foul family castrasting Chance at the end.

MGM cleaned it up. The piece is robbed of its doom and tragedy. It retains much that is very effective - Paul Newman is terrific (as you'd hope so considering he played it on Broadway), ditto Geraldine Page. It think Richard Brooks, with his yelly style, suited Tennessee Williams. He makes sure there's a sexual charge.

This lost money though. Maybe the Williams tide was running out. Maybe it would've been a bigger hit with say Ava Gardner in the lead - but their scenes wouldn't have had the same charge.

Shirley Knight isn't bad but doesn't have the heavy aura of tragedy that role really should have. She doesn't seem like someone who's lost a child. Rip Torn and Ed Begley are electric. Knight was always pretty and fine but her performances seemed to lack an extra gear - just imagine what, say, Joanne Woodward or Gena Rowlands could have done with it.

The ending is dumb. So dumb. That awful pompous bland newspaper editor. Them beating up Chance. But then Chance/Newman and Heavenly/Knight going off together. It's really abrupt too like Brooks was embarassed.

I think the film needed a tragic ending for it to have power. He didn't need to be castrated - he comes back and heroically dies trying to protect Heavely, gets shot by Rip Torn., dies in her arms... that works. Because as it is too much of the play is kept for that ending to work. Newman begs Page for a scren test only a few minutes before the final scene. So there's no redemption. No heroism. He's taking what he can.

Movie review - "The Glass Menagerie" (1950) **1/2

 The play is fine. Simple. Autobiographical. I can imagine is cast correctly it would've played beautifully.

This film is... is what it is. Gets off to wrong start with Arthur Kennedy in the merchant marine. Kennedy doesn't feel like Tom. Too strong. Kirk Douglas is also too strong. I mean, why is he calling on her. He's doing his best. Everyone is. The film is made with care. The cast just annoyed me.

Jane Wyman didn't I should say. She was playing it like the text. Gertrude Lawrence wasn't bad. She was just whatever. The flashback scenes seemed dumb.

Some of the scenes play well - Douglas and Wyman in the dark with the lights. But even then Douglas feels too cocky.

Who would've worked? Well, a faded beauty film star for the role of Amanda. Bette Davis, or someone. And a sensitive new age boy for Tom - Monty Clift, or Farley Granger. 

The happy ending is insulting.

Movie review - "I Love You Daddy" (2017) **1/2

Louis CK pushed things to the edge, and continues to do so, but the content and timing of this one was not idea. Ten years earlier it might've been okay but who knows.

It's very Woody Allen, specifically Manhattan with its black and white widescreen photography, classical music, show business milieu, romancing actresses, being interested in the sex lives of young girls With John Malkovich as a Woody Allen style director - acclaimed as a genius, charming, funny, with a reputation as someone into young girls accused of being a molesterer. Apparently Woody Allen was offered the lead but turned it down. Malkovich plays him more as a Polanski type figure (I sense a European actor would've worked better in the role but Malkovich gives off that sensibility).

 There's a scee where Charlie Day mimes masturbating to the thought of the actress played by Rose Byrne - while Louis CK and Edie Falco are in the room. That's a little close to the bone. Anther scene has Rose Byrne going is it so bad if his daughter is with Malkovich? Plenty of things to discuss.

The cast also includes Edie Falco (as a very recognisable type - the put upon overworked producer), Pamela Adlon (kind of a cameo as CK's ex), Helen Hunt (CK's other ex), Chloe Grace Moretz (daughter), the voice of Albert Brooks. That's a hell of a cast.

I laughed a few times. Felt uncomfortable in other places. The parenting scenes seem to lack a little authenticity Maybe I'm wrong. The story telling is a little iffy - felt not quite enough story, or at least what was there wasn't developed.

Book review - "Folly and Glory" by Larry McMurtry (2004)

 The fourth in the Berrybender novels and the best because things actually happen - well people die and suffer. They could've made this one book. McMurtry introduces all these characters to have some to kii but some do have impact - Tasmin loses one child to cholera and another to murder at the hand of slavers, leading to Sin Killer going on a rampage. I know he's resorting to killing of young kids to get an emotional response but it does work. He also kills off a nice Indian girl who was helping out.

The characters are on the whole paper thin - horny aristocratic women, scungy Indians, rapists, eccentric locals. Lord Berrybender remainder a joke the whole way. The second half of the book was page-turny. It helped having good vengeance plot and then the Battle of the Alamo. I liked the bit where he quickly killed characters with chloera in a page or two.

But generally this series tried my patience. He made things up as he went along and used too many of his tropes.

MGM 1961 ad

 In Variety here:

Look not a bad slate... I understand the desire to remake their old films. Nothing wrong with doing Mutiny and Four Horsemen in colour.

But - costs got away for both. And Four Horsemen was spectacularly misconceived.

Movie review - "The Rose Tattoo" (1955) ***

 A big deal in its day - Anna Magnani had buzz, Tennessee Williams and Burt Lancaster were stars, Daniel Mann was consideredn an exciting director.

It's not bad. Magnani is a woman whose husband dies in an accident. She whines about it. Her daughter Maria Pavan is horny for Ben Cooper. Like all these Williams' adaptations I've been watching it feels a half an hour too long. It drags. Lancaster doesn't appear until like 45 minutes in.

At first I was resistant to it and I'm not convinced it's a great movie or anything - too 1950s-adaptation-of-Broadway - but I got used to it.Lancaster is clearly trying - he's slightly amateurish but he's giving it a go, suits the part physically, and is a handsome charismastic star. Magnani Acts all over the place but she commits too. It helps a lot that the two seem into each other and like each other. This was missing in Fugitive Kind - Brando and Magnani didn't seem to care in that one.

Lots of dialogue and acting and two handers. Cooper is fine, I guess. Pavan is sweet. It's a more upbeat Williams. Happy ending and so on.